


Dead Boy's Heart

by samiraxlula



Series: Unearthing What is True [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Detective Comics (Comics)
Genre: Batfamily Dynamics (DCU), Bruce Wayne Has Feelings, Bruce Wayne Tries, Damian Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Dubious Morality, Gen, Immortal Jason Todd, Leviathan Organization (DCU), Past Character Death, Resurrected Jason Todd, Undead Jason Todd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25736059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samiraxlula/pseuds/samiraxlula
Summary: It had been a whole year since Jason Todd had disappeared off the face of the Earth, and even with no body to be found, Bruce still refused to believe that he was dead. Not again, he vowed. Not without evidence.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Talia al Ghul & Jason Todd
Series: Unearthing What is True [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1866892
Comments: 13
Kudos: 159





	1. Dig Up His Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And Caesar's spirit, raging for revenge, Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war; ...  
> — from William Shakespeare's Julius  
> Caesar

_One year later..._

If Paris was known as the city of light, then what was Gotham?

Though the black gloom over the city had an illumination all of its own—the cold garish neon of the sex industry, the feverish light in the dead eyes of desperate drug addicts, the inadequate streetlights creating pools of shadow in which muggers patiently awaited, it was deeper down in the depths of the city where it became apparent that the only light to be had was artificial...as manmade as evil itself.

Such lights could be found streaming out of the Wayne Foundation building, a high-rise complex whose lit ‘W’ symbol could be seen across the city, dominant and recognizable as any symbol of success would be on the tallest building in Gotham.

The event being held was a black-tie party, a fundraiser for one of Bruce Wayne’s many pet charities which he so fondly named after his mother, a woman herself known for her many acts of humanitarianism and as a patron for the arts, education and tolerance.

The Martha Wayne Foundation supported and helped run a number of orphanages, education programs for students with learning disabilities and sponsored organizations like Family Finders, which was directed at finding lost people and uniting families.

“And why are you late now?” 

An exasperated deep voice pinched the bridge of his nose as he looked disapprovingly down upon the sheepish nineteen-year-old just now waltzing in while simultaneously adjusting his bowtie and ducking in under the purple velvet ropes.

“A technical error occurred causing an unexpectedly long bought of unconsciousness.” Tim coughed as he met Bruce’s eyes. 

“ _Tt_. Drake overslept.” Damian scoffed, his hands clasped behind his back and not looking unlike a rigid military general standing at attention.

“Shut up, gremlin.”

“Enough,” came Bruce’s interjection as he took a sip of the ginger ale from his champagne flute, one of the many tricks he picked up while cultivating his public persona. “Cassandra is already out on the floor with the guests. I expect tonight to go _smoothly_.”

“Well now that you’ve said it, you definitely jinxed the whole thing.” Tim sighed as he glanced at his watch before moving past Damian to go find the older female in mention, leaving the biological father and son behind.

As Damian looked up at his father, he felt the need to say something in the face of the man’s completely neutral expression. 

While his resting face was normally nothing to be concerned over, Bruce being a very serious, reserved man to begin with—a fact Damian admired—it was surprisingly bizarre to see upon _Brucie_ ’s face, who could usually be seen with a lopsided grin and flirting with some model on his arm.

However, his father hadn’t smiled much in any of his masks since the events wherein his grandfather’s manipulations came to light.

It had almost been a whole year since Jason Todd had disappeared off the face of the Earth, and even with no body to be found, Bruce still refused to believe he was dead. Not again even despite them all witnessing him drive a knife deep into his own neck and everyone else’s reluctant admittance to his tragic second demise.

Bruce didn’t expect anyone else to understand, though. None of them were there when he...found Jason.

_“It seems you two were fated to meet.”_

_Alfred raised an eyebrow momentarily at the batmobile’s tires before he watched the man pull off his cowl, revealing a genuinely amused smile tugging at Bruce’s expression before it took over into a grin._

_“Yes…his name is Jason.”_

But Bruce didn’t talk about Jason after they had returned. No one did for the several years that passed since he had been murdered in Ethiopia. 

It almost felt like one of the cardinal rules akin to no killing or Batman doesn’t go out during the day. _You don’t talk about Jason._

“Father, I…” Damian started, earning the man’s attention but finding himself uncertain in his next words. “...I shall go check on Drake and Cain.”

As the boy briskly walked off, an uncharacteristic display of awkwardness in his step, Bruce found himself alone to his thoughts, which was always an uncomfortable feeling as he lingered on the peripheral edge of the gala in his less favourite black suit.

Having already performed his obligatory rounds of handshaking and mingling, the billionaire was left to his own devices as glasses chinked around him, adding soft accents to the low murmuring of chatter as soberly clad waiters offered trays of cocktails and hors d'oeuvres around the room while he watched.

As a concept, Bruce wasn’t someone who believed in notions like fate or destiny. He thought of himself as far too analytical for that, preferring to utilize science and logic in his rulings instead. However, he did believe in fate the night he met Jason. 

At the sight of his earliest tragedy, where he had lost his own childish innocence and had his world ripped out from underneath him, was the exact same place and evening where he’d meet a boy who would make him burst out into laughter, something he would never have otherwise thought of doing in such a solemn place to him.

It was only after Jason’s death when he and Alfred were left standing in front of the recently erected stone angel that he had confided in the butler that he’d often wondered if his parents had sent him the child.

And it was later still that the man replayed his memories of the boy over and over again in his mind, as if trying to keep him alive even if just in his memories. It was the only method he knew to keep the image of himself holding Jason’s cold and brutalized corpse in his arms from destroying him.

It was the same method he used to keep himself from slowing down in his search for Jason, storming one League holding to the next, practically having declared war against Ra’s to find him.

“ _Hey, Dad_.” 

A familiar voice leaning over his shoulder from behind made Bruce startle enough to go completely rigid, turning his head to see the missing Jason himself smirking mischievously over his own champagne flute, dressed in a black and deep crimson tuxedo to blend in with the other wealthy guests.

“It’s been a while but I need your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this chapter was just far too wordy and unnecessarily thought-filled. I'm going to try focusing on dialogue more after this.


	2. But Leave His Soul Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback within a flashback.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Graphic depictions of violence ahead.

_Three weeks earlier..._

Jason Todd waited without even taking a single breath as a masculine voice finished its business with another, and strong footsteps marched away into the distance. 

The western-facing door to the massive arabian fortress opened slowly, creaking and groaning on its hinges as though pushed by an aged, withered old man. Moving quickly, he rolled silently across the roof, catching its edge with the palms of his hands and swung down into the fortress.

The remaining guard barely had time to turn his head before the intruder had kicked him straight into the sandstone bricks, knocking him out cold as shown by the guard sliding down from his sudden introduction to the wall, head slumped to his shoulder.

Letting go and moving onwards, Jason swung himself back up to a perch on top of one of the exposed wooden ceiling beams and was in position before the body even hit the ground. 

Not waiting to hear the return of the second guard’s footsteps, which were walking at first, then running, as he shouted the name of his fellow assassin, there were sounds of more shouting and then the thunder of similar footsteps as other stationed guards collected in the entryway, Jason continuing to prowl away in the high ceilings, sensors on full alert.

Peering down into a large barracks-style room where dozens of men lounged about, a red light began to flash as a warning siren blared. Ignoring the soldiers swiftly mobilizing, Jason began to work his way toward the highest point in the fortress, surveillance telling him that his target would be there. 

Swinging down from his perch and starting up a narrow stairway, a tiny dividing line between the shadows ahead warned him to backflip off the stairs just as several assassins made to tackle him.

_Well, I was planning on getting in some exercise today._

Driving his bladed gauntlets into one's face before kicking out the legs of another, Jason grabbed a fallen handgun to shoot the third one right between the eyes, a red splatter painting the sandstone.

Though one of them feinted towards him as another two tried to bull rush him, Jason had anticipated the move, and leapt into the air with a spinning roundhouse kick, using his right hand for balance, sending them tumbling to the ground. The katana formerly strapped to his back whistled through the air, a sickening squelch finishing the job as their heads landed on the ground.

“Guess that proves death didn’t do anything but slow me down a little,” a mocking grin was displayed on the young man’s face as he pulled down his lower red face mask, eyes still covered by a domino.

Leaving the corpses behind, Jason moved back to continue climbing up the stairwell, his bloodied blade still in hand as he pushed open the door at the top of the stairs, revealing a figure in dim lighting seated in seiza position.

The woman radiated an inner calm and held a bamboo quarterstaff in both hands. However, as Jason approached, she twisted, twirling the staff at the same time, her bare feet noiseless as she moved into an attack position. 

The two locked eyes for a silent beat before smiling.

“Ready for extraction, T?”

*

As dawn broke over the daunting and virtually uninhabited—aside from the League compound—Rub’ al Khali desert, a sleek private jet could be found cruising at fifty-one thousand feet, well above any possible commercial aircraft.

“ _Dog_ ,” Talia intoned, raising an eyebrow at the German Shepherd who was nosing the back of her hand in greeting. “How clever.”

Jason chuckled from the seat opposite as he patted his knee for the dog to jump up onto his lap and lick his cheek affectionately. “Yep, Dog. Gotta’ love her.”

“So did you spend your year away finding answers or a pet?”

“Both. I did try to keep you in the loop, didn’t I?” Jason’s eyes glinted with that sharp cleverness most people overlooked in him.

“Yes, I suppose you did.” The jet tilted slightly following the charted flight plan as Jason’s Leviathan soldiers piloted the plane upfront, not that the move was felt in the pressurized cabin. “Though you could have been far more productive had you used your numerous operatives and not insisted on doing it all yourself.”

“Is this about me showing up personally to extract you? And here I thought you’d be glad to see me again.” Jason shook his head and tut-tutted in good humour, which Talia only waved a hand at in response.

“And what is it that you have learnt?”

* 

_When Jason woke up, he found himself in front of a dying fireplace while laying across a beat-up couch._

_Pushing himself up with the knit cover that had been thrown over him, his foot absent-mindedly tried to scrape over a dried blood spot on the floor when an older blond man he had been looking for came back with a cup of hot coffee, handing it over to him._

_Though he had long become used to the constant growing pains he had been having since his dunk in the pit, his muscles still ached in a similarly dull, background way, rubbing over the stretch marks he’d only first noticed while stitching himself up after a particularly rough training session as a seventeen-year-old._

_"Sorry about earlier, kid. I thought you were a ghost yourself for sure. Surprised me to see someone else in limbo between life and death."_

_"Limbo?" Jason queried, wanting to confirm what he meant. “How’d you figure that?”_

_While he had been back and forth between the living and dead and discovered the existence of a second skull belonging to him, Jason had figured that he’d become a person removed from the physical plane to some degree, though esotericism wasn’t something he was well-versed in enough to judge. Hence, his search for people who were._

_"I fancy myself a bit of a detective of the strange and unusual." The blond shrugged, long ash seconds from falling from the cigarette hanging from his mouth._

_"What, like the Question?"_

_"That conspiracy nut? Nah, kid. Think more on the occult and mystical side of things."_

_Jason sniffed the air curiously for a moment, rubbing his nose at the scent permeating through the abandoned house they found themselves in. “What’s that smell?”_

_"Ah, that smell...it's hell rot. It only happens when poor buggers who sell their souls die." He ripped up a floorboard to feed the fire, earning a brow raise from Jason._

_"So...what? I stumbled onto a worker of hell self-destructing?"_

_“Something like that.”_

_“Cool...” The younger man nodded slowly, rubbing his side before taking a long sip from the mug. “Uh, thanks for the save, I guess.”_

_"It was mainly just curiosity anyway. Small acts of kindness aren't going to get me a slot upstairs, that's for certain.” He stumped out his cigarette against a glass ashtray he found. “Got a name?"_

_“Jason.” The omittance of his surname wasn’t brought up, even though Constantine supplied his own in return before launching into a story all of a sudden to Jason’s mystification._

_“When I was younger, I found this skeleton in an old quarry. I had been hiding from some of the neighbourhood bullies then, you see. In the ribcage, there was this stone that I thought of as the dead boy's heart. Just a boyhood fancy, of course.”_

_Constantine took a swing from a flask he pulled out of his trench coat as he reminisced over his childhood adventures, rubbing a hand across his wrinkled face._

_“You reminded me of that.”_

_Jason felt a terrible chill overcome him that didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the man’s words—an arctic cold just seemed to reach into his bones and freeze them solid. His heart beat heavily in his chest, sensing something was not quite right at that moment._

_“You saying I have a heart of stone?” Jason couldn’t resist quipping in the face of discomfort, a Robin trait he never quite kicked._

_Constantine only turned his head towards a basement door off to the side, it having caught his attention for whatever reason and attempting to kick the old heavy door thrice, he found himself unable to break it down to his annoyance._

_“Bollocks. How about I tell you whatever you want to know about being in limbo in return for getting this door open for me. Not that I think you could unless you've got some training from people with mad skills on the old breaking-and-entering game."_

_Jason could only laugh at that._

*

“I see,” Talia hummed from her seat on the now descending plane, watching Jason rub Dog’s belly as he narrated an episode of his search.

The peaks of the western Mongolian mountain range could now be seen, where a monastery formerly belonging to the Order of St.Dumas had been revamped into serving as Leviathan’s new headquarters, having been swift in detaching itself from Ra’s League on their resurrected leader’s order.

“So, what did you discover on your end?” Jason looked up at the woman he had come to think of as something akin to a mother-figure, who crossed one leg over the other as her expression shifted from pondering to dark.

“My father has become completely unrecognizable upon taking control of the League once more.” Her fists clenched on the armrests. “Not only has he used the Pits for so long that the flesh now fails him, but he is desperate and he is hunting. All the great masters of the League have been deployed at this point.”

“For what? If it’s not a Lazarus Pit that Bruce hasn’t shut down...?” Jason’s brow furrowed in growing concern, feeling an odd chill run through him at the thought of a desperate Ra’s.

Talia sighed while turning her head to look out the small plane window. “Madness has overtaken him to the point where I can barely understand his motivations anymore.”

“What is he looking for, Tals?” A tone of urgency crept into Jason’s voice.

“His greatest enemy,” she said simply after a pause. “ _Death_.”


	3. Broken Boy

For one moment Bruce Wayne was whole and secure in the company of his parents, a child deeply loved and loving, and the next moment he stood shattered and alone. 

Instantly helpless, the child was unable to stop the blood, unable to do anything but scream as he watched his mother and father die right before him, their killer running away free into the night. 

Years passed and that same child grew into a man who had eventually found himself a new family. Not through blood or marriage but by choice and empathy. He found himself grow comfortable and even happy with his newly formed bonds. However, this careful repair of emotions would be ripped away from him once more with another death in the family. 

The death of a son who now stood before him, returned from the very grave he buried him in all those years ago.

Jason’s tuxedo jacket was unbuttoned, exposing the formal dress shirt underneath just like the other males in the penthouse were, not that the look reflected the uncomfortable varying emotions in the room.

The only person who looked remotely relaxed was Cassandra, who was sipping from a chilled water bottle but otherwise remained as deadly quiet and silent as she had been trained to be, unconsciously watching and listening to every little thing.

“It’s called the Oroboro trigger.” Jason spoke from the end of the conference table they had all gathered around, explaining his reasons for returning to the city of his birth after all this time.

“I’m familiar with the device,” Bruce nodded from the table’s head, his tone business-like once he had gotten over the immediate shock of seeing his second son again. “It was the brainchild of Otto Netz, though I didn’t realize he had managed to complete his vision before his death.”

“The senile Nazi who headed Spyral?” Damian tutted. “And here I thought Grandfather had some semblance of sense left in him.”

“Not at this stage. Though he usually has some plan to reform the world in his twisted image, this is his last shot at it. So you’d better believe he’s going to go all out to make it happen, with or without an heir.”

“And usher in the dramatic rebirth of the world in the manner Grandfather has always wanted. From ashes. Tch.” Damian crossed his arms as the information settled in, as well as the consequences of the Demon’s Head getting his hands on the meta-bomb trigger.

Before Spyral had been dismantled by a mysterious organization that seemed to come out of nowhere, Otto Netz had created a trigger capable of activating a ‘ring of death’ so to speak around the world, implemented by his own agents whom he had sent out to place these bombs.

“While Talia’s been able to locate the trigger itself to someplace in this city, several other major cities have been set up to fall with the explosion, including Metropolis next door which Gotham would definitely feel lasting effects from.” Jason finished off his point.

The streets far below were broad threads of light, weaving the dark fabric of Gotham as skyscrapers stood out with their illuminated windows—not nearly so many lit up as there were earlier in the evening, but enough to suggest the outlines of their towering, dark forms. 

After the city had been traumatized by plagues, earthquakes and even being abandoned by the government, a fierce determination had been lit in all those who survived to never see such a thing occur again on their watch. In fact, Jason was banking on it.

“And when you have it? What are you going to do with it?” Tim asked, finally speaking up himself from where he sat next to Cass. 

Jason didn’t even cast a glance towards him as he answered dryly, not quite bothered with the question but it wasn’t pleased by his continued existence either. “Keep it away from men like Ra’s, whom in case you had forgotten, kept me hostage for nearly four years. What else would I bother with it for?”

Tim appeared sceptical for a minute but his curiosity eventually won over. He’d been unconscious during most of their siege on the Himalayan compound to his embarrassment, and thus missed his chance to meet the one figure that he could never escape from during his tenure as Robin: Jason Todd, whose Robin costume was encased in glass as a memorial and perhaps even a reminder. 

He’d never known much about his predecessor aside from what he could pick up here and there from underneath all the guilty and mournful undertones, learning that Jason had been a street kid who’d helped Batman catch a group of thieves operating from a boy’s home. And despite the rough patches, Bruce had been fond of him and adopted him within a short while of their unusual meeting.

Cassandra, on the other hand, having listened to all she felt she needed to, stood up abruptly. “I will go search.” Her eyes were narrowed with the fierce determination that defined her.

“Perhaps, Miss Cassandra,” Alfred interjected smoothly from where he stood behind the group, making the girl pause in her step. “We should all return to the Manor first and reorganize appropriately.”

“Alfred’s right.” Bruce folded his hands underneath his chin. “If Ra’s is planning on making a last stand, we’ll need a more unified front.”

Tim sighed from his seat, slumping somewhat though everyone else was beginning to rise and move. “This sure was a great time for Dick and Babs to go on a whirlwind romantic vacation…” 

Jason himself looked just about as ready to fly out of the room as Cassandra did, though for different reasons entirely considering his detestation with every second he had to spend in the presence of his once family after having spoken all that he needed to. Collecting his removed tie, Alfred’s hand on his arm gave him pause as well though.

“Now, Master Jason.” Alfred turned to his thought-dead grandson, gaze as steady as ever despite the glassy emotion behind them. “I must insist you stay at the Manor with us for the duration of your stay.”

Jason seemed uncertain for a moment, going through a few different expressions for a moment before shrugging with a forcibly pleasant smile. “Sure...why not?”

As he walked off with Alfred having brought his arm around his shoulders, Jason kept silent, not feeling like talking any more than he already had with a family he no longer cared about nor recognized. Not that the whole city was recognizable to him anymore.

He supposed it didn’t matter much anyway. They’d already believed all the lies he wanted them to.

*

An icy wind was blowing off the Cape Carmine bay along with a cold and clammy fog that rolled in and could be felt against the face of a tall, dark-haired man who pulled the zipper on his jacket up higher. 

The dock area was already chilled and soon the November temperatures would freeze the entire city. But for now, all the man cared about was getting out of the biting wind, slinging his encased quiver up higher on his shoulder as he pushed open the doors of a large cargo container, one of dozens of similar containers. 

Slipping inside noiselessly, he didn’t bother to use a light to find the hidden hatch that pulled open to show stairs descending downwards, following them until he came to what almost looked like an underground basement where a few others were gathered, all affiliated with the same league. 

“Merlyn, you’re late.” A displeased tone greeted the dark archer. 

“Well, I had only just received word of this little excursion.” He gave a sharp, unapologetic smile to the other assassin as he adjusted his leather gloves. “Besides, wasn’t Cheshire the last to arrive as usual?”

“It’s called being _fashionably_ late.” The grinning cat stepped out of shadows without much of a care in the world.

“Now, why have a group of trained killers been assembled to hunt down a little thing like a meta-bomb?”


	4. Heart With a Gaping Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason stays overnight at the manor, schemes, and has conversations with his "younger brothers."

Winter came early to Gotham City that year. 

Foreshadowing a prolonged and difficult season, the days were already dark and the nights unremittingly cold by the time Thanksgiving rolled around. While there had been no heavy snowfall as of yet, flurries were common and the frequent rain was usually mixed with sleet. 

Everyone anticipated a white Christmas. 

_It finally happened then. Hell’s frozen over_. Jason chuckled at his own joke as he gazed out the cold-frosted window in his old childhood bedroom. 

He hadn’t slept here last night as Alfred hadn’t deemed it suitable enough due to being locked up for so long and thus put him in a guestroom, but the next morning Jason had decided to visit his old haunt merely out of curiosity. 

While he could tell they attempted to remodel it as closely as possible to the original, it was still different from his memories. 

After the earthquake levelled the city and the government-sanctioned No Man's Land, Gotham's new skyline had become an amalgamation of yesterdays and tomorrows, with newly-erected towers of glass standing side-by-side with the granite Gothic citadels preserved from the old city.

The Manor wasn’t spared from these changes either and thus felt strange and foreign to Jason as soon as he walked in, no longer familiar with its halls and rooms, even the wrought-iron gates looking different.

Jason didn’t know how he felt about that. Or if he even did feel anything about it. While he was willing to momentarily put his grudge with Bruce aside to deal with Ra’s, it didn’t mean that he was interested in playing family again. And if he was being perfectly honest, beyond a casual hatred, he felt entirely emotionally removed from them all. 

Moving away from the window as his pocket began to vibrate, indicating an incoming call, Jason sat down on the edge of the bed and took his phone out, sliding up to accept. 

“Sir.” A voice which Jason recognized as one of his many homeless intermediary operatives in Gotham, greeted him respectfully. 

Though he hadn’t been overly involved in Leviathan’s workings for the year he had been away searching for answers, a strong grip still remained over numerous poorer communities from where they employed the homeless to keep their ears to the ground and relay messages, a resource fortunately in abundance in the neon nightmare of big-city corruption that was Gotham.

“The Seven Men of Death arrived in Gotham, as well as Cheshire. She’ll be keeping an eye on them and updating you with any more information she receives.”

“Wonderful. Thanks for letting me know, Mackey.” 

“Of course, sir. _Leviathan rises_.” The call clicked as it ended and no sooner than it had, Jason’s eyes flicked up to the moving shadow that entered his old bedroom. 

“What was that about?” Damian emerged from the dark recesses of the room corners, his tone inherently suspicious and his apathetic features tight.

“I make a point of _surveilling_ , Dames. I keep my eyes and ears on _all_ kinds.” 

“Mother used to perform a similar role for Grandfather.” The younger boy sniffed. “She did all the real work, getting her hands dirty for him while he played his strategy games against Father.”

“That’s not what I’m doing here.” _A half-truth, anyway_ , he kept to himself.

“Isn’t it?”

“Are you saying you don’t trust us now, Dami?” Jason’s gaze was sharp and scrutinizing as he took in his now unsure younger brother. “Two years of living here and your loyalties are already skewed, huh.”

“I know what I gave up to live here, akhi.” Damian’s voice became a quieter tone, which Jason slowly used as well after a long, heavy sigh in an unspoken apology for his words.

“It’s alright. I get it. Bruce is good at building devotion. We'd all die for him if he asked, wouldn't we?” He absentmindedly picked up a framed photograph resting on the nightstand of a younger him and Bruce, who had an arm wrapped around his shoulders and both smiling in the soft lighting of the kitchen. It had been taken during one of their first father’s days together.

“I had to work to gain his trust. His acceptance. I may be the new Robin, but I’m still looked upon with suspicion solely for my genetics. Half of which are _his_.”

Jason set the photo back on the side table to look at Damian, his face softening in sympathy upon seeing how genuinely hurt the twelve-year-old was. “What brought you up here in the first place, Dami?” He spoke sensitively, remembering how hard it was for him when he first started living here as Bruce’s son. 

This seemed to snap Damian out of his dejection as he remembered his original intentions.

“Father’s summoned us all to the cave.”

*

Outside it was still daylight, but deep beneath Wayne Manor, it was always night. 

Stalactites jabbed from the ceiling and sleeping bats rustled in their roosts. Shadows cloaked secluded nooks and crannies throughout the extensive underground complex from where the occasional, still resting flapping of bats' wings could be heard in the vaulted ceiling above them.

However, unlike their namesake, the figures in the cave were wide awake and gathered around the computer station to where Jason and Damian exited the elevator⏤also a new addition since his first death⏤and crossed the stone floors to join them in their briefing.

Here, the Cave was cold, damp and dangerous.

Because in his eyes, it was now enemy territory.

“We’ve had reported sightings of Lady Shiva, Merlyn and a number of other known League associates in Gotham.” Batman started, though his cowl had been pushed back to reveal Bruce Wayne’s face.

Jason didn’t take a seat like the rest had to listen to information he already knew, making a point in keeping himself away from the group and instead contending to lean against the railing protecting from the abrupt drop-off, the sound of running water coming from somewhere nearby.

“Though most of the Justice League has been called away for an inter-planetary crisis, the Flash is still on Earth and has managed to locate six of the chain-bombs.” He carried on his briefing despite a flicker in his expression at Jason’s distance. “While he carries on his search for the final bomb, the trigger remains to be located here before the other League does first.”

A black and white cat, which Jason remembered Damian introducing as ‘Alfred the Cat’ to his amusement, mewled and hopped off the computer where he had been napping, stalking off to the side and passing by a glass case holding what appeared to be his old Robin costume, floating in absent space, mask and all.

After staring at it for a quiet beat, his distaste became clearly written on his frosted-over face, lip curling with disgust at having been made into a symbol of Bruce’s failures and placed on display to be brooded over. _What a great legacy to be made into_ , Jason sneered to himself as he turned his face from it. 

“Tim will be running point on this, Batgirl and Spoiler will take the northern island...”

As tasks were divided up, Bruce’s eyes caught Jason’s, who turned his head from him, irritated beyond measure despite his attempts at controlling it. 

As long as they were all kept busy and distracted with this, he’d be able to do what he had come here for. Hence, he tolerated the man’s continued breathing for now.

*

The manor was quiet that evening.

To Tim, the silence seemed tense and brooding with all the others being out on their search and leaving behind a quiet emptiness that he was already used to from the Drake Mansion. 

Climbing the rear staircase with his laptop tucked under his arm, he guessed that might have been why he wanted to become Robin so desperately. So that he’d have something to fill the empty place in his life while his parents were always gone across the globe digging up ancient civilizations. 

And then that was gone too with the arrival of Damian, who became the new Robin just this year, leaving him once more in the quiet loneliness of a giant house that was not quite a home.

Walking into the library, he paused at the sight of Jason Todd seated on the floor in front of the couch, reading some thick hardcover book peacefully. It was definitely a sight that he hadn’t expected to ever see in his time living here, considering the fact that they had all thought Jason to be dead before he uno-reversed them.

“Hey…” Tim greeted with a slightly hesitant wave as he entered the room, earning the first moment Jason had ever met his eyes straight-on. 

“Hi.” The older male returned flatly, going back to his book with little interest in his replacement.

Unbothered by the lack of an enthusiastic response from his predecessor, Tim sat down on the floor next to Jason without invitation, making the man start in surprise. “Why do I get the feeling that you’ll just plunk yourself next to me wherever I go?”

“Well, it’s kind of the persistence that got me the Robin job in the first place.” He smiled jokingly but quickly dropped the look when he noticed how it made an irritated twitch in Jason’s expression.

“Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have said that.” Tim apologized, looking a bit uncertain with how to proceed delicately. “It’s just that... I’m a bit more used to talking to you about whatever comes to mind like that. I mean...not _you_ , you. Your case. I used to sit in front of it a lot.”

“Right.” Jason frowned, annoyed at being reminded of the offending memorial a level down underneath the Manor and Tim’s using him as a ghostly counsellor of sorts even after meeting him above six feet.

“I really looked up to you both as a kid. You and Dick that is. The whole Robin legacy. It’s why I didn’t know how to feel when you just...weren’t there one day. It felt like a solar eclipse without the sun, honestly.”

At no sign of response, Tim carried on despite feeling like he was being intentionally ignored, making up his mind to say everything that he had always wanted to tell Jason when he had become Robin. 

“I’ve spent my entire career wearing this mask under your shadow. I had to convince Batman to let me try this. All because he’ll never stop blaming himself for what happened to you.”

“You make that sound like my fault.” Jason glared, breaking his silence. “I was abandoned. Forgotten about. _Replaced_.”

“No one could forget you, Jason. I didn’t even know you and I still thought about you all the time. Before and after I became Robin. As for being replaced...yeah, I get that now.” Tim trailed off, realizing that they were both now ex-Robins who had little say in the matter.

“I knew I wasn’t going to be Robin forever and I didn’t want to be either, but...I don’t know. I guess I shouldn’t be saying anything since I barged my way into it myself without your approval, but I knew when I stopped going to school–after everything that’s happened–that this would have to become my life. And now it isn’t anymore.”

A silence came over them as Jason leaned his head back on the couch and gazed upwards at the two floors of bookshelves after bookshelves. He didn’t really care to listen to Tim expunging his feelings onto him like he was his diary but listening to the kid did change his perspective on certain events. 

“Anyway, life’s all about change, I guess. And if that’s the case, then I’m sorta on my third lifetime too.” Tim coughed awkwardly, wondering if that was an inappropriate thing to say to someone who had quite literally died more than once.

He figured it wasn’t when Jason unoffendedly scoffed a laugh and the mood lightened with it.

“So what’s stopping you from starting your ‘third life,’ as you so eloquently put it?” Jason made a thoughtful hum.

“Nothing, really. I’m actually starting teacher’s college this fall.”

“No kidding?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While there was some nice bonding this chapter, I must say that this won't start any sort of friendship of brotherly relationship between Jay and Timmy. Jason still can't be bothered with the bats beyond certain motivations, so this just really served as the boys' first bonafide meeting with each other in this fic verse.


	5. Dark Twisted Fantasy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Tim leaves, Jason stays in the library to think. There Bruce makes an appearance himself. Elsewhere, the search for the trigger continues.

The room was dim and shadowy, lit only by the occasional lightning that flashed through the darkened study's long windows. 

Bruce stood before the fireplace and stared at the portrait hanging over the mantelpiece. The painting was of Thomas and Martha Wayne, who had been murdered when he was just a child, their deaths being what started him on a crusade that continued to this day. 

Whenever the man was troubled, he would stand before the portrait and seek his parents' guidance. Now, as he looked up at the loving image of his parents, he felt ashamed. As if he had only failed them and their memory. 

When he had started his mission in their name, sacrificing any sort of normalcy or happiness for duty and vengeance, he had been so driven in his cause, casting aside any possible relationships to become the dark knight alone. But then he started to...train partners...to work and fight alongside him. Over time, they became family. But then, one after the other, he failed them all spectacularly. 

Without a sound, Bruce turned from the weighty portrait to leave the study, feeling the painted gaze of his parent’s eyes following him disapprovingly. 

Taking only three steps out from the door, the man felt himself pause before the library door, noticing that the lights were still on and bleeding through the cracks into the hallway despite the late hour. 

Pushing the door open, he found a small boy with dark, curly hair sprawled out on the floor, his attention focused on the black and white lettering of the thick novel he was reading...or at least that’s what he would have seen in another happier time. 

The Manor’s library was where Jason had always felt most at home—making it the one place in Wayne Manor that was more his than Bruce's, just like the garage was with Dick, who used to spend hours there after fights with Bruce, revelling and tinkering with all those gorgeous machines he loved.

And while Dick spent most of his otherwise free time away from schoolwork and Robin training on the phone with friends or swinging around on chandeliers, Jason could always be found cosied up in the library, reading or writing some letter to a pen-pal across the country.

But that was in a different time for all of them. 

“The family sure got big when I wasn't around, huh?” A now older Jason mumbled absent-mindedly at a framed photograph he was looking down at, letting it go to wrap his arms around his knees. 

It was a vulnerable position for a boy who was never allowed to be.

“I blame myself.” He continued quietly, an almost-undetectable raw quality in his voice. But then again, Bruce was the world’s greatest detective. 

“What?” The older man’s disbelieving voice turned harshly upset, his gaze not wavering from Jason’s even to blink, eyes locked in on his adoptive son like a heat-seeking missile. He didn’t understand how on earth Jason could blame himself for Bruce’s failings. The many of them that there were. 

“For giving up. For not...trying harder to escape.” Jason rubbed his hands over his face tiredly. “God, what happened to me?”

There was a silence between them that had Bruce hesitate before moving forward to settle down next to Jason on the floor, his back to the couch and their knees touching.

“I was in my old room. It’s not the same anymore. Nothing is.” Jason commented, his voice just above a whisper and strained in the way of someone who had not and could not sleep.

“Most of the Manor was destroyed in the Quake. We tried to salvage a few of your belongings before we bulldozed everything to hide the cave but most was lost.” There was a heavy pause for a minute before Bruce spoke again.

“Jason…” His voice was quiet, solemn even as he took a breath. “I know it won’t make any difference now but...I never wanted to hurt you. I would have done anything to keep you safe. I still would.”

“Except do the only thing I’ve ever expected out of you. Avenge my murder.”

“That’s—”

“Forget it,” Jason interjected sharply, his voice becoming so cold it was almost calm as he closed off from Bruce again. “I don’t want to talk to you about this. Any of it. I’m not your son anymore. I’m no one’s son.”

Bruce wanted to argue. Wanted to shake him and tell him that he’d never stop being his son. But his tongue was heavy and he didn’t know how to use it. He felt useless. All these years he’d spent going over everything again, thinking about what he’d say differently, how he’d do more...but here was his chance and he could only sit next to the boy he failed over and over again. His greatest failure for so many reasons.

The old days were simpler. Happier even. The days when he could ruffle Jason’s hair and call him ‘Jaylad,’ see the admiration and caring in the boy’s eyes and making sure he knew it was fully returned. 

The guilt in failing his son had weighed on his shoulders for years and he still didn't know how to reach out to Jason. His own shortcomings failed him yet again.

Now as Jason stood to walk away from him, passing the bust of Shakespeare on the way out, the room’s temperature seemed to almost dip slightly and become suffocating, going dark before fading away into the rest of his dreams. 

Leaving Jason Todd leaning over the sleeping Bruce in his darkened study, lightning flashing to reveal the painted portrait of Thomas and Martha Wayne behind him.

“Do you even realize how easy it is to kill you like this?” Jason whispered, though there was no one awake to hear it. He then scoffed, turning his head from Bruce with a dismissive puff. “Pathetic.” 

Rising back up to his full height, he looked down on his former father slumped over in his armchair with a look of utter despising, the whisper of the dawn breeze just beginning to stir with the flutter of a leaf outside or a creak of the house—something to testify that reality was still intact, broken in upon them at last.

It was something of a shame he’d admit to have to manipulate the entire family like this the whole time but the game had already begun and he wasn’t going to let anyone get in his way of _winning it_. 

*

The train rattled along the elevated tracks throughout the city, its steel and concrete scenery passing by the two figures catching a ride on the slippery roof as thunder rolled, followed by lightning and now rain as they became drenched by it.

“Now!” An entirely black-clad feminine voice commanded as she jumped off the speeding train, the reflection of neon signs painting her in vibrant colours as she was quickly followed by an eggplant-coloured girl.

“Alright, I’ve got a possible ping at 15 Kane Street.” The business-like voice of Tim Drake came over their comms, directing them from back in the cave where he was bundled up in an old quilt and sipping a large mug of coffee. 

“Oh, good. That’s only a block away from us.” Spoiler pumped her fist once in the air as she leapt off of a roof edge with a ‘poof’ of a compressed air-powered grapple gun, the silent Batgirl giving her something of a head start before diving after the blonde.

Dashing across the rooftops of the impoverished Park Row district, the female vigilante duo finally made it to the address Tim gave, leaping over the litter-covered streets and piles of garbage strewn along the sidewalks below.

The address was home to the Kane Building, an old apartment house built in the forties for Gotham city's elite, and while once used to house the wealthy, it was now terribly deteriorated like so much of the city was, now having just become a shelter for addicts and the homeless.

Sliding open a window from the side of the building, the two twenty-something-year-old women swung into a decrepit hall with flickering lights, passing by a busted old stroller as they ventured further down the dark passages, careful not to wake a sleeping stray dog. 

“Tim,” Stephanie whispered as she tip-toed around the dog. “Do you think you can narrow the ping in any more? I’d rather not have to silently run up and down six floors.”

“I could.” Cassandra shrugged nonchalantly, making the blonde turn back around to stick out her tongue playfully at her, earning an unseen teasing grin back from behind a black mask. 

“Give me a minute…” Tim muttered, sounding like he was chewing on a pen as keys clicked away in the back. “Okay, turn down the next hallway and try the first room on your right. It should be locked with a surprisingly modern system for the building’s general state.”

Following his instructions past dripping pipes, the pair got to the door he specified where Spoiler set straight to disarming the impressive high-tech door lock, managing it in just under seven minutes before pushing the door open to reveal what looked almost like an extensive antique collection from wall to wall. 

Batgirl went straight to a safe that was placed under a bronze statue of the Hindu goddess Kali, noting the idol for a moment before beckoning to Spoiler who raised an eyebrow at the metal box before again moving to unlock it and succeeding. 

“Damn.” She commented with a low whistle as she carefully removed a grey cube that had a multi-coloured ring in its center. “To think that something so dangerous was just lying around in some old dusty safe.”

“We found it.” Batgirl raised a hand to tap the commlink in her ear, reporting back to a surprised Tim. 

“Wow, seriously? I was just going off a hunch by tracing advanced meta-materials...but great work, guys. We’ll be waiting for you two back in the cave.” And with that, Tim signed off with a click as the duo turned to leave before halting abruptly in their tracks. 

“Well, well. There seem to be some annoying little flies caught in the spider’s web.” A perpetually-flirtatious voice broke in on them, leaning against the entrance to reveal Cheshire with a hand to her ear, apparently reporting back to someone. “Shall I just kill the two of them?”

“ _No. You won’t_.” Batgirl pushed Spoiler behind her as she glared at the grinning assassin, shifting into a fighting position just as Cheshire was quickly joined by Merlyn and a number of other non-descript inner-circle League assassins. 

“Spoiler, go. I’ll hold them all off.”

“Yeah...I guess it would just be dumb to argue with you at this point, so I’m just gonna go…” Stephanie nodded while shuffling away awkwardly from the intense scene, clutching the Oroboro trigger in her arms.


End file.
